In Use:

I am not a hard core gamer by any means, but I do like to play some of the less intense games out there. So, to test out the new monitor I fired up one of my favorites, Bioshock 2. The Viewsonic VA2323wm has a 5 millisecond response time which makes it great for gaming because of its fast refresh speed. The video card I’ve got is a GTX 260 that as my husband, head geek of our castle, tells me is a mid range “enthusiast” card and is great for a casual gamer like myself.



As you can see in the below left image, the main menu for Bioshock 2 looks great in widescreen, and even with the low ambient lighting in the image the colors pop and the contrast is great. As I get into the game and progress through the storyline, I didn’t notice any lag in the changing scenery or any distortion or blurriness in the details of each new image. This is very important in a game such as Bioshock 2 where players have to pay attention to minute details in their search for resources and clues.



Now, I’ve spoken about the visual aspects of the monitor and so far they’ve been great. What I haven’t touched on is the built-in speakers and the audio quality. Truth be told, I had high hopes for the built in speakers because the external speakers I currently have take up a little too much space on my desk and the cats are constantly knocking one or both of them off onto the floor. I’m a realist and I knew the built-ins wouldn’t have the same depth of sound as my current speakers, but even with that in mind I was disappointed in the audio quality while playing the game. The sound was tinny and it really lost the surround aspect that is helpful when playing games such as Bioshock 2 where you want to “hear” who’s sneaking up behind you before they brain your character with a pipe wrench.

In fairness to the built-in speakers, I even tried paying another game that was less “sound dependent" - Plants vs. Zombies. The soundtrack for Plants vs. Zombies is more music than effects and even though the need for surround sound wasn’t there, the audio still wasn’t as rich or pleasing as with my external speakers.



The other reason I booted up Plants vs. Zombies was because I wanted to see how a fixed ratio game would look on the 23” widescreen. As you can see below, the images are still quite crisp, although some of the line work, particularly in the Zen Garden (on the left), is a little fuzzy. Other then that, Plants vs. Zombies looked great and there wasn’t any delay in game-play with this title either.